Antiviral treatment

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   A potential weapon against viral infections is in experimentation.

Viruses are not, strictly speaking, alive, and destroying them has been very problematic. A new area of research has opened up to use a 'mechanical' method to destroy a viral organism... Shake the bejesus out of them. Vibrate them, with laser energy thus far and other methods posited, so that the resonance tears them apart enough that they cannot function.

 Article wrote:

Scientists may one day be able to destroy viruses in the same way that opera singers presumably shatter wine glasses. New research mathematically determined the frequencies at which simple viruses could be shaken to death. 

"The capsid of a virus is something like the shell of a turtle," said physicist Otto Sankey of Arizona State University. "If the shell can be compromised [by mechanical vibrations], the virus can be inactivated." 

That's a hell of an idea.

Edited by reifidom - 05 February 2008 at 1:28pm